1904 General Slocum disaster

The sidewheel passenger steamboat, built in Brooklyn in 1891, left her East River pier on the morning of 15 June 1904 with more than 1,400 people aboard, mostly women and children, bound for a picnic site on Long Island. Fire broke out as she worked up the river, and the captain of a nearby dredge sounded four blasts of his whistle to warn her crew once he saw smoke. Grounded in shallow water, her bow was engulfed and passengers were forced aft. The loss was followed by a major upgrading of steamboat safety regulations and a sweeping reform of the United States Steamboat Inspection Service.

Date
1904-06-15
Deaths (Wikipedia list, low end where it gives a range)
1021
What the pin marks
North Brother Island in the East River, where she was run aground burning, as the cited page positions it.
Where the position is published
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS_General_Slocum

Category: Disasters & Incidents

Tags: steamboat, fire, east river, new york, 1904

Coordinates: 40.80067, -73.89833

Part of Peacetime shipwrecks that killed 500 or more people since 1900

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